Gumbaz - The Burial Chamber of Tipu Sultan, the Tiger of Mysore

Gumbaz is the burial chamber of Tipu Sultan, his father Haider Ali and mother Fatima Begum. It is built on a lifted platform and is circumvented by various other tombs of his relatives and nobles. The Gumbaz is situated at the end of the town. This is the mausoleum of Tippu Sultan; his father Hyder Ali and mother Fathima Begum. Tippu built this magnificent structure in 1782-84. It is an impressive square structure, surmounted by a dome and surrounded by a corridor supported by pillars of black hornblende. The Gumbaz has a large well-shaped dome, it has beautifully carved ebony doors inlaid with ivory, and the Gumbaz has carved stone windows with excellent work on it and inscriptions. Inside the tomb Hyder Ali has been laid to rest in the middle and on either side are the tombs of his wife and son. Tippu's tiger stripes cover the walls of the Gumbaz. The Gumbaz has magnificent ebony doors decorated with ivory which was presented by Lord Dalhousie. The interior walls are covered with lacquer Tiger stripes which is Tipu's favourite. A corridor lined by pillars of black amphibole walls Gumbaz. Masjid-e-aksa a mosque is situated next to the Gumbaz. The Gumbaz is surrounded by a beautiful gardens adds to its beauty. Tippu built the "Gumbaz" at Srinagapattana in 1784 which is a square shaped mausoleum with ivory-inlaid doors and black marble pillars. Tippu is buried here by the side of his father Hyder Ali and mother Fatima Begum. Outside the tomb are the graves of his relatives and commanders. Nearby the "Mashit-e-Aqsa" mosque, with a pair of small minarets is located. A solar clock could be found outside this building.

Tipu Sultan (November 1750, Devanahalli – 4 May 1799, Seringapatam), also known as the Tiger of Mysore, was the de facto ruler of the Kingdom of Mysore. He was the son of Hyder Ali, at that time an officer in the Mysorean army, and his second wife, Fatima or Fakhr-un-Nissa. He was given a number of honorific titles, and was referred to as Sultan Fateh Ali Khan Shahab, Tipu Saheb, Bahadur Khan Tipu Sultan or Fatih Ali Khan Tipu Sultan Bahadur. During Tipu's childhood, his father rose to take power in Mysore, and Tipu took over rule of the kingdom upon his father's death. In addition to his role as ruler, he was a scholar, soldier, and poet. He was a devout Muslim but the majority of his subjects were Hindus. At the request of the French, he built a church, the first in Mysore. He was proficient in many languages. In alliance with the French in their struggle with the British, and in Mysore's struggles with other surrounding powers, both Tipu Sultan and Hyder Ali used their French trained army against the Marathas, Sira, rulers of Malabar, Coorg, Bednur, Carnatic, and Travancore. He won important victories against the British in the Second Anglo-Mysore War, and negotiated the 1784 Treaty of Mangalore with them after his father died the previous year. Tipu Sultan, the eldest son of Haider Ali, was born on December 10, 1750 at Devanhalli. Right from his early years he was trained in the art of warfare and at the age of 15 he used to accompany his father Haider Ali, the ruler of Mysore, to different military campaigns. In Addition, he also learnt different languages, mathematics and science. Tipu Sultan had a fascination for learning. His personal library consisted of more than 2,000 books in different languages. He was an extremely active man and worked hard for the welfare of his subjects. He took over the kingdom of Mysore after the death of his father in 1782, who died of a carbuncle in the midst of a campaign against the British. He continued fighting the British and defeated them in 1783.

Tipu Sultan was born at Devanahalli, in present-day Bangalore District, some 33 km (21 mi) North of Bangalore city. The exact date of his birth is not known; various sources claim different dates between 1749 and 1753. According to one widely accepted dating, he was born on 20 November 1750 (Friday, 10th Dhu al-Hijjah, 1163 AH). His father, Hyder Ali, was a military officer in service to the Kingdom of Mysore; he rapidly rose in power, and became the de facto ruler of Mysore in 1761. His mother Fatima or Fakhr-un-Nissa was the daughter of the governor of the fort of Kadapa. While leading a predominantly Hindu country, Tipu remained strong in his Muslim faith, going daily to say his prayers and paying special attention to mosques in the area. He built a church, the first in Mysore, on French request. Tipu Sultan is also infamous for the inhuman atrocities committed during his invasion of South Kanara, Kodagu and Malabar. The revolt against Tipu's rule in Malabar was crushed. The Sirian Christians and Hindus were persecuted in these regions with plunder, destruction places of worship, and mass conversions. The main deity at the famous Guruvayur Temple had to be shifted to Ambalapuzha due to the imminent attack from Tipu's forces. The King of Kozhikode (Samudiri/Zamorin) committed suicide in his palace to avoid capture by Tipu. Members of the royal family of Chirakkal were deported to Mysore. There were large scale migration of people to the kingdom of Travancore, fearing persecution. In fact, historically the region south of the Tungabhadra river was relatively immune to the great ravages and plunder from attacking armies unlike those in the Northern parts of India. The only two exception to the aforementioned were the acts of Hyder Ali/ Tipu Sultan in Malabar- Kodagu- South Kanara regions and the sacking and destruction of Vijayanagara.

After Horatio Nelson had defeated François-Paul Brueys D'Aigalliers at the Battle of the Nile in Egypt in 1798, three armies, one from Bombay, and two British (one of which included Arthur Wellesley, the future first Duke of Wellington), marched into Mysore in 1799 and besieged the capital Seringapatam in the Fourth Mysore War.There were over 26,000 soldiers of the British East India Company comprising about 4000 Europeans and the rest Indians. A column was supplied by the Nizam of Hyderabad consisting of ten battalions and over 16,000 cavalry, and many soldiers were sent by the Marathas. Thus the soldiers in the British force numbered over 50,000 soldiers whereas Tipu Sultan had only about 30,000 soldiers. The British broke through the city walls, and Tipu Sultan died defending his capital on 4 May. When the fallen Tipu was identified, Wellesley felt his pulse and confirmed that he was dead. Next to him, underneath his palankeen, was one of his most confidential servants, Rajah Cawn. Rajah was able to identify Tipu for the soldiers. Tipu Sultan was killed at the Hoally (Diddy) Gateway, which was located 300 yards (270 m) from the N.E. Angle of the Seringapatam Fort. The Fort Gateway had been built only 5 years prior to Tipu's death. Tipu was buried the next afternoon, near the remains of his father. In the midst of his burial, a great storm struck, with massive winds and rains. As Lieutenant Richard Bayly of the British 12th regiment wrote, "I have experienced hurricanes, typhoons, and gales of wind at sea, but never in the whole course of my existence had I seen anything comparable to this desolating visitation".

The column that rounded the northwest corner of the outer wall was immediately involved in a serious fight with a group of Mysorean warriors under a short fat officer, which defended every traverse. The officer was observed to be discharging hunting weapons, loaded and passed to him by servants, at the British. After the fall of the city, in the gathering dusk, some of the British officers went to look for the body of Tippu Sultan. He was identified as the fat officer who had fired hunting weapons at the attackers, and his body was found in a choked tunnel-like passage near the Water Gate. Benjamin Sydenham described the body as: 'wounded a little above the right ear, and the ball lodged in the left cheek, he had also three wounds in the body, he was in stature about 5 ft 8 in (1.73 m) and not very fair, he was rather corpulent, had a short neck and high shoulders, but his wrists and ankles were small and delicate. 'He had large full eyes, with small arched eyebrows and very small whiskers. His appearance denoted him to be above the Common Stamp. 'And his countenance expressed a mixture of haughtiness and resolution. He was dressed in a fine white linen jacket, chintz drawers, a crimson cloth round his waist with a red silk belt and pouch across his body. 'He had lastly his turband and there were no weapons of defence about him.'. The Water Gate, the place where the Tippu Sultan's body was found, the area where the British prisoners were held and the site of the destroyed palace.

Tipu Sultan's father had expanded on Mysore's use of rocketry, making critical innovations in the rockets themselves and the military logistics of their use. He deployed as many as 1,200 specialised troops in his army to operate rocket launchers. These men were skilled in operating the weapons and were trained to launch their rockets at an angle calculated from the diameter of the cylinder and the distance to the target. The rockets had blades mounted on them, and could wreak significant damage when fired en masse against a large army. Tipu greatly expanded the use of rockets after Hyder's death, deploying as many as 5,000 rocketeers at a time. The rockets deployed by Tipu during the Battle of Pollilur were much more advanced than the British East India Company had previously seen, chiefly because of the use of iron tubes for holding the propellant; this enabled higher thrust and longer range for the missile (up to 2 km range). British accounts describe the use of the rockets during the third and fourth wars. During the climactic battle at Seringapatam in 1799, British shells struck a magazine containing rockets, causing it to explode and send a towering cloud of black smoke with cascades of exploding white light rising up from the battlements. After Tipu's defeat in the fourth war the British captured a number of the Mysorean rockets. These became influential in British rocket development, inspiring the Congreve rocket, which was soon put into use in the Napoleonic Wars.

Srirangapatna (also spelled Shrirangapattana; anglicized to Seringapatam during the British Raj) is a town in Mandya district of the Indian state of Karnataka. It is located near the city of Mysore and is of great religious, cultural and historic importance. Although situated a mere 19 km from Mysore city, Srirangapattana lies in the neighbouring district of Mandya. The entire town is enclosed by the river Kaveri to form a river island, northern half of which is shown in the image to the right. While the main river flows on the eastern side of the island, the Paschima Vaahini segment of the same river flows to its west. The town is easily accessible by train from Bangalore and Mysore and is also well-connected by road, lying as it does just off the Bangalore-Mysore highway. The highway passes through this town and special care was taken to minimize any impact on the monuments here. Srirangapattana became the de facto capital of Mysore under Hyder Ali and Tipu Sultan. When Tipu finally dispensed with the charade of deference to the legitimate Wodeyar Maharaja who was actually his captive, and proclaimed the "Khudadad State" under his own kingship, Srirangapattana became de jure the capital of that short-lived political entity. In that heady period, the state ruled by Tipu extended its frontiers in every direction, encompassing a major portion of South India. Srirangapattana flourished as the cosmopolitan capital of this powerful state. Various Indo-Islamic monuments that dot the town, such as Tipu Sultan's palaces, the Darya Daulat and the Jumma Maseedi (Friday congregational mosque), date from this period.